Asterisk Coin Trunks

Fully-functioning coin trunks using Asterisk PBX

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Created by InterLinked

Telecom | Created 5/15/2020 3:43 PM | Last Activity 6/3/2022 6:36 PM


Background

Coin controllers have existed for payphones for quite some time, allowing collectors to restore old or acquired payphones to their original operation. However, this equipment is bulky, expensive, and typically inflexible.

In 2019, several telephone collectors were able to modify the source code of some DSP code in Asterisk to create detectors for MF, SF, and single-slot coin denomination tones (often erroneously known as "ACTS" tones, due to their use in ACTS coin trunks). It wasn't long before we got Asterisk to reliably detect single-slot coin denomination tones, and soon we started writing a wrapper for that which evolved into the ongoing coin trunks project.

How it works

A centralized tandem is set up with emulation for several kinds of coin trunks. At this time, this includes single-slot coin first (prepay), post pay (Western Electric style), dial-tone first pre-pay, as well as ACTS. The first three trunks are essentially complete, and we are working on the ACTS trunk as well as final touches.

The coin trunks are all emulated fully on a remote Asterisk system, which means the owner does not need to be concerned about the details of the trunk operations himself. All he needs to do is have his payphone automatically dial (using an ATA, channel bank, or directly from within his local Asterisk box) to the appropriate coin trunk. These trunks are fully integrated into the mock toll ticketing system, so calls made will appear appropriately on the bill associated with the coin phone.

What needs to be done

We still need to include support for collect and return. This is one reason coin controllers are often used - interfacing 130 V AC with your phone is no easy or trivial task. However, it can be done, and much more cheaply than efficiently than using dedicated coin controller equipment.

We are working on designing custom equipment that will be cheap and easy to mass-produce, which will include the ability to detect MF tones from the remote coin trunk. This equipment would go between the payphone and its associated line equipment (ATA/channel bank, etc.) and would allow for local voltage operations which require a physical connection to the phone.

Finally, in the future, we hope to expand this to 3-slot coin phones as well. One additional barrier here is the reliable and accurate detection of the 3-slot gongs, which is an issue we are studying at the moment extensively.

How YOU can help

If you have suggestions on 3-slot coin detection or voltage control, we'd love to hear from you! Please leave a comment below.

Question? Suggestion? Idea? Inspiration? Log in to leave a comment!

5/20/2022 6:22 PM — Southernphoneman

You shoud do this is will be a great addition to our network. Look foward to seeing it

5/20/2022 6:21 PM — Southernphoneman

you should make a video on youtube and show us how to do this

3/17/2022 3:11 PM — InterLinked

Joe, as mentioned previously, Millenniums are not network-controlled coin phones. Your payphone needs to get a polarity reversal directly from the ATA (I think you mean polarity, not voltage)? Additionally, the trunks do not do voltage directly, they need to interface with a Feature Group C compliant Asterisk or coin line unit.

3/14/2022 6:27 AM — CadillacJoe

Naveen, You and I have talked about me using a Grandstream ATA with my Nortel Millennium payphone. I believe we have confirmed that these payphone lines can be configured for voltage reversal (the Grandstream ATA has this option of doing voltage reversal). So, can your lines do a voltage reversal upon answer? Thank you, Joe (CadillacJoe)

2/23/2021 5:58 PM — InterLinked

We don't have a premade board to sell for this yet - that's still in the works yet.

2/23/2021 12:32 PM — nach

hi, would you sell controllers for 1slot payphones? thanks